In the same way that the Doctor Who franchise tells stories about sweeping intergalactic events that always happen to center around Britain, anime is naturally focused on Japan. One of my favorite shows from the 80s is Aim for the Top!, a hardcore SF series by Evangelion creator Hideki Anno that’s equal parts Ender’s Game, The Forever War and the famous “Gainax bounce” (slightly NSFW), which tells the story of humanity’s struggle against an alien race that spans 12,000 years. (The series is actually an extended homage to a tennis anime from the 70s called Aim for the Ace!, but that irony is lost on most fans.) Gunbuster is interesting because it shows the optimism Japan felt in the halcyon days of the 1980s, as its star kept rising and the land value of Tokyo was worth more than the entire U.S. on paper, before the bursting of the asset bubble changed all that forever. Another story with an exceedingly optimistic future for Japan is Space Battleship Yamato, which features a Japan-led world government that takes responsibility for saving the Earth from the evil Gamilas Empire and its radioactive planet bombs.
Gunbuster, a show about Japan’s glorious future in space.
